Gothic Sentry Tower

[2500kgm3]

I am finally back. Resin casting will not continue until next week, but in the meantime, I am building one more small piece I had neglected that I need to build buildings with multilevel terraces. In addition, I am thinking about designing some more pieces which might or might not see the light of day as casted parts of a building.

Some people has noted the buildings I showed in the video lacked pointy rooftops. Therefore, I am thinking about designing some gable wall pieces/flying butresses and pointy spires to put on top of the “battlement” floors. I was also thinking about more floor tiles, but I guess these will have to wait. If any of you have any suggestions regarding that, feel free to tell me what would you like to see created (river/open sewer tile, for instance). I guess all these pieces will be left for a second wave, but will allow for MANY more possibilities.

 

In addition, I am starting to think about how I will paint the initial building, I have decided it will be an Imperial bastion equivalent, although the system allows for nearly any kind of building to be built with a combination of pieces.

I am thinking of applying a black priming coat, then a grey-brownish basecoat then 2/3 drybrush levels to light grey, but I am also considering going for the hardcore approach, and forgo drybrushing for a more controlled application of paint, for a much more time consuming process. I might make a test piece from an old miscast during this week. Any advice? Do you think going for a brownish grey instead of a pure grey is a good choice?

Do you think a bastion equivalent will be a good showcase for the system? I am a bit worried about it having 4 identical walls, since I would prefer to have a wider variation of pieces shown, but I am trying to stick to what an imperial bastion equivalent would be. Maybe I will try to make a more complex building the next time.

[Dude with a Brush]

If you ever make these available for purchase, I'll buy one.

 

This !

[2500kgm3]

And just as I was going to continue working on my project, my pc dies, and I need to format it and reinstall all programs I use, which is a daunting task. I think I should have it solved by tomorrow, but it will slow my progress for some days.

 

Anywere, I started making some more moulds, and designing a “pointy spear” set of two pieces, to create a four sided “spire” on top of any building, based on the feedback I recently got, of buildings being not "pointy" enough.

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/7/398839_sm-.jpg

 

These are ready to cast, but won't be casted in the first batch of pieces, since these are purelly cosmetic. I will probably wait until all pieces needed for a bastion are ready, and regular buildings can also be built.

 

Meanwhile, I am finishing another batch of moulds. it's only 3 moulds to go until a bastion can be assembled (just the wall with the gates and the “heavy bolter” counts as)

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/7/398840_sm-.jpg

 

 

 

 

If you ever make these available for purchase, I'll buy one.

 

This !

 

I expect the first building to be ready by the end of this month. If any of you wanted, we could make a deal.

[2500kgm3]

And I'm finally making huge progress!

 

I am now finishing the two moulds I still need to do to be able to build a “2500kgm3 pattern” Imperial bastion, but on the meantime, I went on and started casting quite a lot of pieces.

 

These are the finished moulds with the corresponding piece over each:

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/9/399629_sm-.jpg

 

Next step will be documenting each piece, building the bastion and painting it, With lots of pics, of course, and maybe some videos. Any tips or things you are interested in me showing? After that is propperly documented, I may offer a set of pieces to build that bastion for sale.

 

And I have been working on somehting else: pieces allowing you to create slanted roofs:

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/9/399628_sm-.jpg

[Brother Anvilus]

God-Emperor, I hope you live in europe, so I can probably get one of these <_<

[Dude with a Brush]

Pure awesomenes!

[2500kgm3]

God-Emperor, I hope you live in europe, so I can probably get one of these :)

 

The God-Emperor has heard your prayers. The Emperor Protects and brings you low-cost shipping xD

[Dosjetka]

This is so exciting :(

 

Ludovic

[2500kgm3]

Casting for the first towers has started! This is a limited run devoted to test fit the building and make a showcase video. Each side of the table tenis table houses almost enough pieces to assemble a full tower (A handful of pieces are missing in that pic)

 

And yes, you can find on that table tenis table the very first space marine I ever built and painted, to give a sense of scale to the pieces.

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/10/400142_sm-.jpg

[Wolf Brother Spyrle]

Awesome stuff. You are inspiring me to build my dream battlefield table.

[2500kgm3]

Here is a pic of the improvised recording studio I assembled on my garage for a video showcase. You can't say I'm not trying xD

 

http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg401/2500kgm3/IMAG0474.jpg

[2500kgm3]

Editing was a nightmare, but the english version of the showcase is finished. Editing was horrible because the camera I borrowed is not that good, and I had to get audio three times until I could use it.

 

I will refrain to post the link to the video until I can edit and upload the spanish version of the showcase, which I hope will be ready by tomorrow.

[2500kgm3]

Listening to my wife's advice after four days of nonstop shooting video and editing that video, struggling to get something of a decent quality with my terrible equipment, I decided to take some free time, and we are going on vacation during the weekend. Therefore, I won't be able to answer any mails or comments to the videos. For that reason, I decided to pospone publishing the videos until I get back from that free time (on monday).

 

However, as I think I should not leave you without anything to look at, I took a pic of "something" you can see in the video, and used a photoshop filter to avoid revealing way too much...

 

http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg401/2500kgm3/distorted.jpg

 

Sorry for the extended waiting time!

[Dosjetka]

I can wait :D Have a nice short holiday!

 

Ludovic

[The Silent]

This is brilliant stuff!!!

Enjoy the days off!

[2500kgm3]

In case you didn't notice, I love teasing xD

 

I want to warn you beforehand. In spite of spending almost a week recording and editing the videos in both english and spanish, these videos don't have a good image and sound quality. The only camera I could get was not capable of handling anithing beyond 480p for youtube, and my microphone was garbage. Therefore, the sound and video quality is garbage.

 

I hope I will compensate it with the contents of the video, however. Everyone asking himself how do these pieces interact, will be able to watch me assemble them in real time, and will know wich steps are needed to assemble a tower (I refer to it as a "tower" because an Imperial bastion is quite smaller than this structure). Spoiler alert: It can be easily assembled in under 8 minutes with almost no effort. I thought of it as a tutorial video.

 

Since this is a modular system, after building the tower, I allowed myself to show some bigger buildings that could be built with up to two tower kits worth of pieces. Don't miss that, even if you don't care about the assembly process! xD

 

Of course, more kits would allow me to build even bigger buildings, but I hadn't casted any more sets by then.

 

Here is the video:

 

 

And to compensate the bad quality of the recording, I will leave you with some images with better resolution:

 

Here is the spoiler pic without the photoshop filter. As I'm sure you guessed, it's the full tower next to a regular space marine.

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/19/403439_sm-.jpg

 

And here is the tower besides a Rhino, in an improvised game with some friends. I hope some day our table will be all made of buildings using these resin pieces, instead of unpainted cardboard.

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/19/403440_sm-.jpg

 

I will sell these kits at 50€ plus shipping. After discounting the 23€ of pure resin the kit includes, that leaves me with a 2€/hour wage for each hour I spend casting the pieces for each new tower and getting rid of flash and excess resin. Although I will get no benefits until I make back the 350+ euros I spent in silicon for the moulds.

 

The next step of the plan is assembling a tower using discarded pieces. I will fix them with putty and then paint the tower to use it with my armies. I hope you will continue following that new stage of this voyage...

[Dosjetka]

Wow. That looks damn good! However, if you haven't already thought of that, some door pieces wouldn't go amiss :cuss

 

Looking forward to seeing the next update!

 

Ludovic

 

EDIT: The video isn't actually that bad, understandable and you can clearly see what you're doing :)

[NemFX]

let us know when your willing to start selling stuff, cause these are great!

 

have you considered making parts / weapons for the minis themselves?

[2500kgm3]

let us know when your willing to start selling stuff, cause these are great!

 

have you considered making parts / weapons for the minis themselves?

 

I am now willing to sell some of these tower kits, since I am going to make another batch of towers and I could cast some excess pieces. Please, remember given we are working with resin, these kits may have some of the same problems Forgeworld kits have. Specifically gaps of up to 2mm between two pieces. I recomend a high viscosity glue, to fill these gaps. Fortunately, I remove flash and casting vents before shipping so, unlike when dealing with Forgeworld, that won't be an issue.

 

In case you missed it, my previous post includes a video on how to assemble the tower and instructions on how to order a tower kit, which I am sure will be good to look at if anyone is interested.

 

 

Regarding making parts for miniatures, that's a whole different world, and I'm not really interested on that, since there are many great third party companies with better sculptors dealing with that market. I just wanted to make scenery for my gaming table, and as people was interested in getting some pieces, I am making them avaliable to you too.

 

Wow. That looks damn good! However, if you haven't already thought of that, some door pieces wouldn't go amiss :)

 

you will notice both in the video and the second picture, that there are gate pieces to provide buildings with entrance points. Regarding open gates, a single storey high arch wall piece would do a great job if we put it over two pillars without a wall between them.

 

Thanks for your encouragement!

[2500kgm3]

After uploading the video and starting taking orders, I got some time to assemble my own tower, using miscast pieces. As you can see, there are gaps among pieces and they don't fit seamlessly. I have been told Forgeworld has the same issues. My excuse is I used cardboard to do the original pieces and they were sculpted and cut by hand. I don't know which is Forgeworld's excuse xD. I am using dense glue (contact glue in my case) to work around it, but I've been told dense SuperGlue works well too. Then, I am filling the gaps with cheap putty.

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/21/404442_sm-.jpg

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/21/404443_sm-.jpg

 

As you can see, I am not done yet.

[2500kgm3]

After gapfilling, I started priming the tower. I have not fully assembled it in order to paint the interior of the tower easily. I think I will go with a yellowish-grey for the floor tiles and a grayish-brown for the tower walls.

 

Do you think it will look good?

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/23/404864_sm-.jpg

 

 

 

On an unrelated note, I have finally packed the first tower pack!

 

http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg401/2500kgm3/IMAG0507.jpg

 

http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg401/2500kgm3/IMAG0508.jpg

[2500kgm3]

Walls are basecoated on one side, and the ground area is basecoated too. I still have to apply ink it and give it two drybrush layers.

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/23/404865_sm-.jpg

 

I then applied a black ink. After that, it still needs a not-so-dry drybrush of gray paint, and a drybrush of white, "killing" its yellow-ocre basecoat colour.

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/23/404866_sm-.jpg

[2500kgm3]

I bring you hi-res images of the base for this building! I am quite proud of the result, since I am a pretty bad painter. I think I won't be able to make it justice with the rest of the tower, which is just drybrushed.

 

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/25/405522_sm-Base%20to%20my%20gothic%20sentry%20tower.JPG

 

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/25/405523_sm-Base%20to%20my%20gothic%20sentry%20tower.JPG

[2500kgm3]

And why would you need floor tiles if you didn't have anything to be built on top of them?

 

I have finished painting the interior of the building. As I gave my tower heavy-bolter-like weapons, I used some control panel pieces on the inside of the tower. My marines will be able to shoot them when on the first floor of this bastion. I went with green screens since I thought it would clash beautifully with the reddish building.

 

Any feedback? As always, click on it to go to the gallery page and zoom on the picture

 

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2012/8/27/406093_sm-Work%20in%20progress%20of%20the%20interior%20of%20my%20gothic%20sentry%20tower.JPG

[2500kgm3]

Some people say a picture is worth a thousand words. What about a video of the finished tower then?

 

 

After casting about 60 pillars, my pillar moulds cracked. I will start creating new ones tomorrow, using some of the first pieces I casted. I hated creating that mould xD.